


speak twice (the scrying remix)

by magicasen



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel 1872, Marvel 616
Genre: Fix-It, M/M, Multiverse, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-15
Updated: 2017-02-15
Packaged: 2018-09-15 04:12:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9218447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magicasen/pseuds/magicasen
Summary: The words were clear as glass in his mind, although people couldn't read in dreams.If you're reading this, Steve needs your help.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Man who Forgot](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9105088) by [navaan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/navaan/pseuds/navaan). 



> Thanks to laireshi for the beta.
> 
> Much of the dialogue is lifted straight from the 1872 miniseries.

The door shuts, but Rogers is still in the room with him. That should earn him a withered look, but Tony's head lurches. He doesn't trust himself to not overshoot and end on the floor for the trouble of turning his head.

Making sure Tony gets into bed and under sheets is only saved for the nights Rogers stops by the saloon too late, and Tony won't make it back on his own. Rogers isn't the type of man to leave someone lying in the middle of the street.

But Tony's near-sober compared to his usual state tonight. He's no clue what Rogers is doing, likely because Rogers himself has no idea. Man hit his head and now doesn't know who he or anyone else is. When he first saw Tony, he'd been very wary and polite. It's irksome; amnesia's the sort of thing saved for drinking songs.

Rather than starting the rant all over again, Tony's energy's better saved for stumbling to bed. He hears Rogers light the lamp, which is pointless when the man'll leave Tony passed out in a minute. When he's safely by the bed, he looks over to shoot the remark off before he stills.

By the lamplight, Rogers's face is all intent and shadows, and a chill slips beneath the warmth of drink and makes Tony shiver.

Rogers kisses him. Tony loses his balance and lands on his bottom, as kissing the sheriff is more intoxicating than a bottle of bourbon.

A creak from the porch makes them spring apart, but Tony has other things on his mind.

“You kissed me?”

He's heard rumor of men who hit their head and wake up speaking nothing but French. Soldiers who went to war for the Union, only to wake up in the nurse's tent swearing allegiance to the Confederate flag. Maybe kissing the wrong person is petty change in comparison.

“Shouldn't have done that?” Rogers whispers. “I thought we did that before.”

“You did?”

The sounds outside are impossible to ignore for any longer. Tony shoves Rogers to the ground seconds before a bullet blows his head off.

“Damn it,” he growls, and pulls up his sleeve. The metal gleams in the moonlight, and Fisk's man falls to the charge swiftly.

Rogers is less preoccupied with the dead man than with Tony's weapon-in-hand. Tony looks, too, and realizes the weapon has a name. Had a name, for long before he'd ever realized what he was building. 

_Repulsor gauntlet._

* * *

Tony woke up with a rush of adrenaline, reaching for his comm on instinct. It took several seconds of staring at the blank indicator light before realizing there was no alarm being sounded.

With a sigh, Tony rolled on his back, rubbing his hand over his chest. The phantom senses of gunpowder and endless dust refused to fade when he closed his eyes.

It wasn't uncommon for his dreams to involve varying situations of mortal peril. The whirlwind romances showed up less, but weren't unheard of.

(The warmth of alcohol though, that was something his subconscious refused to give up on.)

What he usually didn't do in his dreams was makeover his object of desire. Steve was a regular in his dreams, usually as Tony's good friend and fellow Avenger, and at other times, starring in a decidedly more sordid capacity.

Tony didn't think Steve would grow his hair out like that; the man complained enough about how hot it got under the cowl. But it made for quite the picture—how his bangs fell into his eyes, and tickled Tony's nose when they kissed. 

Sheriff Steve with his movie star looks, kissing Tony like he had no other options. Rich, Stark, rich.

Behind his closed eyes as he slowly drifted off, Tony pictured it again.

Maybe that was the rarest thing to find in his dreams—a Steve who looked at him like that.

* * *

“I think you pulled enough corks for today, Stark. It ain't even noon.”

Tony doesn't know why Rogers bothers, and tells him so to his face. If the man wants a repeat of two weeks ago, he should offer to buy Tony a round.

But of course he doesn't, not after remembering who they are. Sheriffs like Steve aren't interested in anyone; no one with sense is interested in the town drunkard. It's a one-two punch right into the ditch.

Tony thinks it would be better if Rogers hadn't regained his memories, and not just for selfish reasons, because Rogers dives right back into his one-man struggle with Fisk like a bloodhound on a scent. Nothing'll put him off the trail but a bullet.

Then Urich arrives and delivers the news about Fisk's men rousing up trouble, and there Rogers goes, dashing off at the first whiff of injustice.

Tony wonders, not for the first time, what place Rogers has in a town like Timely. Law and order, in the face of profit and greed? That bullet will find itself right through Rogers's precious star.

Tony's chest clenches, leaving his breath short. He's annoyed, and fists his hand in his shirt; alcohol doesn't induce heart attacks. What else is it good for, beside easing a broken heart?

Just goes to show, the only place to find a win in this place is at the bottom of a bottle. Tony takes a long swig.

He's outside his smithy and through several more bottles a few hours later. Rogers has returned without a scratch, but a seat with a clear sight of the jail's window is as good as any other for Tony to indulge himself.

Up until trouble shows up walking right down Timely's only street. Tony's eyes narrow as he watches Fisk's boys go through like they own the town. Well, he knows someone who could teach them a lesson.

Rogers is by his side. He gives Tony a once-over, not the type Tony wants, but seems satisfied enough to not ask if Tony's injured. Instead, they face the rest of Fisk's men, who aren't happy at getting smacked by Timely's hand of justice.

Tony's ready to grin and ask him to call it, Cap, readying his repulsor gauntlet before Rogers barks him inside. Tony glues his lips to his flask, to drown out any more stupid impulses.

They make short work of Fisk's boys. Rogers's face is blank when he returns to Tony's smithy an hour later, and doesn't ask for Tony's help when he lifts the corpse by the armpits. He's halfway out the door when Tony blocks his path with a wheelbarrow. Tony drapes himself over it, asking plaintively for a ride, and gets nothing but a stiff lip as Rogers loads the man into the wheelbarrow.

When the bodies are put on display, the outrage of the town's denizens doesn't pierce the haze of drink. What does is when Tony is at work on the faceplate for the armor that evening, occasionally glancing upward and through the window, his mood getting sourer every time.

The lamplight in the window of the jail isn't extinguished until the early hours of the dawn.

* * *

This time when Tony woke, he swore softly. He glanced at the clock. Only forty minutes had passed since he'd last woken up from the dream. It figured that anything happy would devolve into a nightmare.

“Jesus.”

He clenched his fist in the sheets. It wasn't right. That town, corrupt from the inside out. The Steve there, fighting tooth and nail to change something that was rotten to the core. It was like swimming with your hands tied behind your back, always struggling to stay afloat yet alone get anywhere. It wasn't right, how everyone pitied rather than admired him.

And his other self. It was easy, wasn't it, to turn a blind eye and drown your problems in alcohol. His repulsor gauntlet technology was far from rudimentary for the time period. He could be better. Should be better. Always.

Tony swung his legs off the bed, a strange compulsion driving him, the same one that nearly made him call that Steve by his own Steve's nickname.

There was no going back to sleep tonight.

* * *

_The wall explodes in a burst of hellfire, Tony in its center. Iron Man protects him from the heat, but it doesn't protect him from the ice-cold vice gripping his heart._

_~_

“ _Is this the town the place where all the nations of the world send their crazy people?”_

“ _Rogers used to ponder the same exact thought.” Right, because that man had been the craziest of them all._

_~_

“ _Let every man have an advanced and fair warning!” The armor's boot stomps on the ground, sending up a small cloud. “You can go home and sleep in your beds, or die in the streets!” Tony thinks he made his choice ten years ago, but a single bullet under a hot, dusty sun changed his mind._

_If he'd just done something earlier, he thinks. If he'd fought, then things could be different. No one wins wars alone—he might as well have shot that bullet himself._

_It's a lesson he should have learned a decade ago. There's no use wishing for second chances. You could only fight for them._

_~_

“ _Stark, what the hell are you wearing?”_

“ _My coffin.” He still sees the blood on the street, damning him to this path._

_~_

“ _You're wasting your time. It's busted,” Tony drawls out as the man walks up to his fortune teller machine. He thinks he might laugh, and drowns his sorrows with the next swig of whiskey._

_He could have, he would have, he should have, but he's a coward, through and through. Willing for other people to fight, while he rots on the floor._

_The paper is shoved into his hands. “That fortune is for you, Mister Stark.”_

_Tony stares blankly after the man, before unfolding the paper in his hands. He reads the words, and suddenly he can't stop it, the laughter bubbling out of his mouth, rivulets opening to torrents._

* * *

Tony jerked awake, nearly stabbing himself with his screwdriver. He blinked, trying to recall what he was working on before he'd drifted off. It'd probably been minor adjustments to the armor, tinkering that didn't do much for anyone except soothing his own need for productivity.

He pushed the parts to the side, not caring when he underestimated his strength and small, delicate parts clattered to the floor.

It didn't matter, as he dove into another project. A brand-new one, his mind racing with how many puzzle pieces he could fit together. Multiversal theory. Time dilation between universes. An armor, built from scraps in a war-zone. Dreamvision.

Tony'd learned long ago, unlike his other self, that he'd do anything for that man. It didn't matter where he was from, or that he'd never know Tony.

There was something he'd read once, couldn't remember where anymore, the kind of pop fact that people brought up in conversations.

The words were clear as glass in his mind, although people couldn't read in dreams.

_If you're reading this, Steve needs your help._

The last part had been underlined, although Tony was the last person who needed to be told twice.

* * *

“Fisk! Come on down! You're under arrest for obstructing justice!” Rogers shouts up at the window of Fisk's saloon. “No man is above the law!

He looks up at all the windows now, because no one's out in the street but him and Fisk's hit team. “Everyone in Timely, come out! We can take back our government right now!

“For too long, we've looked away as Roxxon, Fisk, and his assassins have forced us to live in terror!

“Come out of your houses! Come out and demand to live free! Come out and say 'no” to the land-grabbing...come out and say “enough” to the water-stealing!

“Throw off the dual yokes of tyranny and corruption! Take back Timely with me! Don't be afraid to claim the streets and demand to live in a free land!”

Tony sees it before Rogers does, but that's suddenly not a problem anymore. The bullet meant for Rogers bounces harmlessly off the armor.

“And you're always telling me I'm too loud,” Tony tells him.

Rogers blinks at him in disbelief. “Tony?” A smile starts at the corner of his mouth, before he flinches. Before Tony can react, Rogers's next shot gets Bullseye square in his namesake on his forehead.

Little by little, people are peeking out behind their curtains, some coming out onto their porches to gawk.

The ever-present alcohol looming in Tony's thoughts has cleared away. There's none of the pain in its wake, guilt and loathing in every glance and touch. To Tony, it's like he's awake for the first time in ages.

Just that clarity had been enough. The ideas had flowed onto the page, then back through his fingers and into his metalwork all night. It really shouldn't have been possible, like working from scraps, but here he is with the finished Iron Man, so it is what it is.

There's Miss Danvers, and Miss Rambeau, and Luke Cage, coming out into the street. They don't acknowledge Rogers or Tony, simply joining them in solidarity. Then Bruce, and finally, Mrs. Barnes shows up, too. She shares a look with Rogers, before coming to a stop beside them.

They stand side-by-side, looking up at the window of Fisk's saloon. The curtain draws to a close, and there's a collective sigh of relief.

“What the hell are you wearing?” Rogers finally asks, turning to Tony.

Tony laughs, bright, because he finally has hope for it.

“It's the future, Steve.”

~

After it's over, Tony puts a coin into his fortune teller, for old time's sake.

He frowns at the fortune that pops out. This message isn't anything mass-produced, and he wonders how it got in there. He shrugs—leave it to Doom, and pockets it anyway.

~

_The Avengers are always on your side. - IM_

 


End file.
